Rush County received some very good news this week.

The Rush County Disaster Coordinating Committee has received a grant of $410,486 from the 2008 Indiana Natural Disaster Fund (IND Fund) to help support recovery work from the storms and floods in June and September last year.

Specific projects funded by the INDFund grant are $355,486 to rebuild the Moscow Covered Bridge and $55,000 to repair the Rush County Courthouse roof.

Tom Barnes, president of the Rush County Commissioners, was obviously pleased to learn about Rush County receiving this funding.

“The county, the county commissioners and the county council, are extremely pleased for the work that Pam (Leisure) and Mr. (Garry) Cooley have done. On behalf of all the elected officials in the county we want to thank them for their efforts. By using no tax dollars on this project, as was designed, we are taking the burden off the taxpayers of the county. I think this is fantastic,” Barnes said.

“The second part of this gift was for the courthouse damages. Without this gift the courthouse damages could not have been completely taken care of — in other words we would have had to just use what insurance kicked in — and we would have had to reduce the project scope. With this funding now available the bridge will be replaced, the courthouse roof will be repaired, and the taxpayers won’t be burdened,” Barnes continued.

Barnes added that the anticipated amount of funding still needed to pay for reconstruction of a covered bridge in Moscow was $450,000 and said that this grant will “pretty much take care of it.”

However, donations for the bridge project from private sources will continue to be sought to help cover any cost overruns that may arise and to help provide for maintenance of the bridge in the future.

Larry Stout, president of local historic preservation group Rush County Heritage, Inc. was also clearly pleased upon learning about this grant.

“This is a really big relief,” Stout said. “Our festival (the Moscow Covered Bridge Festival) is this weekend and we’re still going to work at raising money. Like Tom said, there will probably be overrides requiring additional money, but this is a big relief. We were sweatin’ it there a little bit.”

Plans are for some of the preliminary work associated with reconstruction of the bridge to begin this weekend.

Stout said visitors to the bridge festival will have an opportunity to see some of that work take place.

“The project is going to be started during the festival. The bridge builder, Dan Collom, will be out there cutting and notching pieces that will be used on the bridge. It may be about a month before the actual construction begins.”

Stout said all parties involved are making every effort to make sure the new bridge is as close to the original bridge in design and appearance as possible.

If all goes well it is hoped the new bridge will be completed by spring of next year.